Printable Forms of Single Crystal Inorganic Semiconductors for High Performance Flexible Electronics

 

Professor John Rogers' group at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign seeks to understand and exploit interesting characteristics of 'soft' materials, such as polymers, liquid crystals, and biological tissues as well as hybrid combinations with unusual classes of micro/nanomaterials, in the form of ribbons, wires, membranes, tubes or related. Our aim is to control and induce novel electronic and photonic responses in these materials; we also develop new 'soft lithographic' and biomimetic approaches for patterning them and guiding their growth. This work combines fundamental studies with forward-looking engineering efforts in a way that promotes positive feedback between the two. Our current research focuses on soft materials for flexible 'macroelectronic' circuits, nanophotonic structures, microfluidic devices, and microelectromechanical systems. These efforts are highly multidisciplinary, and combine expertise from nearly every traditional field of technical study.